His first nap in a big boy bed
Shep never ceases to amaze me as the easiest baby/child that ever lived. Last night we set up the basics in LP & his shared big kid room. I have been very unsure if we would be able to transition Shep to his big boy bed before Hudson arrived, or if we would need to have Hudson sleep in a bassinet initially (Shep will be 18 months when his little bro arrives).
We had a less than smooth experience getting Linden to stay in bed (started climbing out of the crib at 15 months) and settled in to a big girl bed when she turned 2…so I had some apprehensions going in to this.
At morning nap time Shep walked into the big kid room, said “up” while patting his new bed, so RC put him in there, Shep popped his thumb in & went to sleep.
Love him & so thankful for such an easy kiddo to parent! Thank you Lord!!
Cars for 3 kiddos – my mini-van review
By the time you are having your 3rd child there is next to nothing {in terms of baby gear} that you need to purchase.
For us, all we needed was a more functional double stroller {we chose the Phil & Ted’s double sport stroller} and to re-arrange our kid’s bedrooms {LP & Shep will now share and baby will have the nursery…photos of the re-arrange coming soon – all of the bedding and window treatments will arrive this week!}.
But the car… with 3 that will all be in carseats for awhile {age 8 in Colorado!} we needed something roomier than our 2008 Honda CRV. As much as I loved, loved that car, we really needed some type of 3rd row of seating for it to be a functional vehicle for a family of 5.
When RC first suggested a mini-van I was annoyed. There is no way I, at 28, was old enough for such a solid mom car…there had to be other options! But unless you want to drop around $50K on a large 3rd row SUV like a Suburban or Escalade and pay the $$$ to fill up the gas tank, there really are very few mid-sized, $30K range, 3rd row SUV’s that are easy enough for a toddler to climb in the back on their own, and with the 3rd row up would have enough room in the back to fit a stroller, groceries, luggage, etc. So…mini-van shopping it was!
After my inner-conflict and reality age/life-stage check, I accepted the functionality of the mini-van and we went test driving. A big thank you to Mom & Dad E. for keeping the kids the day we test drove! Here’s a run down of what we test drove and what my thoughts were:
The Mazda CX-9: My last non-mini-van option
I was pretty excited to test drive the Mazda CX-9 and secretly hoped that we would decide on this great crossover vehicle. It drove great, was roomie enough and even had a decent amount of space behind the 3rd row. This car looks great on the inside and out, and while the interior/dash was nothing impressive, it was functional and clean in design. The CX-9 also got decent gas mileage and handled really well. My only hesitation with the CX-9 was the need to fold a 2nd row seat down to access the back easily, which would mean that I would need to put 2 car seats next to each other in the 2nd row so that the one seat could always be folded down to access the back. This would also make it a little tricky to reach back and buckle up the kiddo in the back – even with her booster seat & using the regular seat belt, my oldest {4 years in a few weeks!} doesn’t have the strength to buckle her own belt yet. So in the end we decided against the car for our situation. If we had purchased this vehicle a kid or 2 ago, it would have been just fine to transition into with 3 kids, but since we were purchasing a vehicle going into the 3rd kid, it didn’t make the most sense.
Dodge Grand Caravan {same vehicle as the Chrysler Town & Country and the Volkswagon Routan}:
Other than the Honda Odyssey that we purchased, the Dodge Grand Caravan was my 2nd favorite mini-van that we test drove. I was initially very surprised to learn that the Grand Caravan is the same vehicle as the Volkswagon Routan… apparently Volkswagon hired out Dodge/Chrysler to manufacturer their vans a few years back, which would explain why they look exactly the same. The Grand Caravan drove and handled great and the interior was very well thought out with families in mind. From built-in sunshade to bottle-sized holders, they didn’t miss anything. There is also a lot of extra in-floor storage that the Caravan has (the Odyssey does also) that some of the other vans do not have. In the end, I don’t know how to explain this, but I felt a little too mom-ish driving the Grand Caravan {yes, I know I am a mom}, but as a marketing person I can tell you that brand identity is a real thing for consumers and I experienced it here. Maybe it was also because my mom drove a Grand Caravan too? It was a really good van, but it came in 2nd on our list.
Toyota Sienna:
I know several people who love their Toyota Sienna and I think that RC and I expected this van to be at the top of our list. All it took for me was a look at the poorly designed interior to be done with this van. One thing that a friend of mine loves about her Sienna is the ability to move seats around and re-arrange them… move 1 forward to be closer to you so you can reach a kid, slide it back, take it out for more room…the way that Toyota does this is on a track system (we looked at the 2012 re-designed Sienna). When I saw all of the tracks on the floor and the general dullness of the interior lines I had 2 thoughts: this is poor design {looks ugly} and I could only imagine all of the junk that would get stuck down in there {food, the great outdoors, etc}. I do not doubt the Toyota quality of the vehicle itself, and the exterior does look pretty cool for a mini-van, but the interior design flaws {in our opinion} were enough to make me not want to spend $35K on this one. I can’t even tell you how it drove – RC is the only one who test drove this one because I had already moved on as soon as I gave the inside a good look. Again, this is no doubt a great mini-van that is routinely ranked #1 or #2 in its class, but it didn’t do anything for us.
Honda Odyssey – the winner:
Our last vehicle to test drive was by far our favorite, the Honda Odyssey. I completely admit that I am 100% biased towards Hondas. I have owned and loved a Honda Accord, CRV and now the Odyssey. The only maintenance I have ever done on any of my Honda’s was to change the oil, replace tires and fill the windshield washer fluid when it got low. My Accord had more than 130,000K miles on it when I gave it back to my mom and it ran perfectly. And for me, one of the most important qualities in my vehicle is its reliability. That whole marketing/brand identity thing… well, Honda is my brand. Now for RC, he is not so much a brand loyal person, but also has appreciated the low maintenance reliability of our Honda vehicles… his turn off is always the price, and it’s true, you do pay more for a Honda on the front end. And frankly, the 2012 Honda Odyssey, with some of the features I wanted {leather}, were beyond what we wanted to spend – we also are not totally sold on the new 2012 Odyssey body style…it kind of looks like 2 different cars smashed together. So we looked at their Certified pre-owned Odyssey’s that had less than 30K miles, but ideally we wanted under 20K miles. We both loved the way that the van drove and its functionality and family friendliness, without being over the top. The Odyssey still has built-in sun shades, but there are no bottle holders…just plenty of cup holders {I think there are 8 within reach of the driver & passenger in the front!}. What we ended up buying was a certified-pre-owned 2010 EX-L Odyssey with 18K miles…it is a dark slate grey (like in the pic) and has a dark grey leather interior and ours has a removable 8th seat in the 2nd row {when it is out there are captain’s chairs}. There is a rear DVD/entertainment system, but we do not plan to tell Linden about this until we have a long road trip to go on – we do not want any TV watching requests when we’re in the car! We are having the leather treated with a sealant that should help with up-keep in case the kiddos spill anything and we’re also having the exterior paint sealed for protection against the CO weather and mag-choloride that they put down to de-ice & snow the roads…we plan on having this van for a while!
On the way to church Sunday morning Linden was saying, “Hello people! Anyone need a ride to church? We have 4 empty seats!!!” Linden has named the new van Sally 
Happenings in pictures
Buddies
I am so thankful that LP & Shep are the best of friends, what a blessing!
Shep does think he is 15 months going on 4 years old and sometimes I forget how little he is too & think he can do more than he can… Like finger-paint… That ended with Shep eating a handful of paint and throwing up in the backyard, rubbing paint & puke all over his head. My only win was that we were outside & I could just hose down him, the picnic table & the grass
Several weeks ago RC found the two of them in Shep’s crib, LP on all fours & Shep standing on her back while she jostled him up and down… buddies for sure!
Big Red Barn
Shep’s favorite book is Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown and this last weekend he started saying “Big Red Barn!” when he wanted us to read the book…it is still a little bit of a run-on word when he says it and it is so cute to hear
Big Brother Training by Linden Paige
As soon as we told the kids that we were having another baby, Linden decided that Shepherd needed big brother training. This has involved being shown how to gently hold her baby dolls (fail); practice spoon feeding her yogurt so he can help feed baby solids (disaster); and showing him how to share his favorite toys (success!).
This morning big brother training involved L demonstrating for Shep the right way to help push a stroller, using the doll stroller for practice. He did throw the doll out of the stroller & pushed around a block instead and had fun for about 20 min. running a loop between the kitchen and family room…he will certainly win any stroller speed races as long as it doesn’t matter if baby is in the stroller We have about 16 weeks left – eek! Lots to do still to get ready, including naming this little man!
More Fort Worth
RC & I were reminded of the ridiculously hot North Texas weather is, even in early May, as we walked along a beautiful trail at the park where we were engaged back in 2004. The AC & a diet coke with lime never felt so good when we were done spending a couple of hours in the 95 degree heat
Fort Worth favs
We are in Fort Worth visiting my Dad/step-mom, Grandpa, sweet friends and having an awesome time taking in some of our favorite Texas things…
L is her favorite letter
Shepherd Scott is 15 months old!
Today is May 2nd, which means our awesomely fun and happy little man is 15 months old!
RC and I think that Shep hit a growth spurt during this last month, growing taller with bigger feet {new shoes!} and a growing vocabulary of words to communicate with. I do not have an official doctor weight on him for this month, but when I put him on the scale at home he was just shy of 28 lbs. and his height at the passport office was about 34 inches tall.
Shep will get his second plane trip tomorrow as we head to Texas to visit my Dad & sweet friends in Fort Worth. I think he will especially be excited to see Paw-Paw’s dogs, which are his latest obsession. Linden cries when she sees a dog get too close, but Shep chases after them saying “DOG! DOG! Woof-woof!”
It has been more of a challenge to find a good discipline tactic that works for him. We started timeout with LP when she turned 1-year-old and would put her in her crib and shut her bedroom door for 1 min., which devastated her to be removed from the action. I tried putting Shepherd in crib time-out and he popped in his thumb and curled up to take a snooze. Clearly not what I was going for… What seems to work best with him is a little hand swat as we tell him no…he still seems generally unphased, but he seems to be much more obedient {in general} at this age than LP was. He is also really good at sharing toys which I am sure is partly because his big sis is always claiming whatever toy he is playing with…
Some of Shep’s stats and milestones from this past month include:
- Has decided he loves the swimming pool and is completely fearless in the water
- His first 2 word phrase was “Momma help” … I found him standing on the stool at the sink in the downstairs bathroom trying to turn the water on to play.
- Other new words include: dog, light, door, pa-pa, more, done, car
- Linden is his favorite playmate
- His favorite book is Big Red Barn by Margret Brown Wise (thanks Uncle Steve & Aunt Erin!)
- Loves playing with his cars and making noises like “vroom-vroom” and “beep-beep”
- Could play outside for hours by himself
- Gives sweet big hugs
- Continues to always be happy and very easy-going
